Harvest and thanksgiving

What it is for

For farming families the harvest is the moment when a year's work becomes food and income. A festival gives thanks to the sun, rain, earth, gods or ancestors that made it possible, and asks for the same next year. It is also a time of rest, reunion and generosity, when workers and landlords share a meal and the poor are fed. The festival marks the turn of the farming year, and often falls on a day fixed by the moon or the sun. Today it keeps a link between town and country for people who no longer farm.

Common elements across cultures

The first fruits or first sheaf are often offered to the gods, a priest or the ancestors before anyone eats. Houses and places of worship are decorated with grain, fruit and flowers. A communal feast is common, with the best produce of the season. Songs, dances and games follow, and some places hold markets and competitions for the biggest vegetable. Many harvest customs involve the last sheaf, which is plaited into a figure and kept until spring. Rest from work, new clothes and visits to family are the other regular features.

Food, dress and music

Harvest food is whatever has just been gathered: new rice, new yam, maize, apples, wheat, grapes, pumpkins and nuts. The dishes are often the simplest, cooked in the open or in the first pot of the year. Festival dress ranges from the new clothes of Korea and India to the straw costumes of European harvest figures. Music is lively, with drums, pipes, fiddles and songs of the fields, and dances often mimic sowing, reaping or threshing. Many places have a harvest queen or king chosen from the young people.

How it is changing

Mechanised farming has made the harvest less of a communal effort, but the festivals remain, now often a celebration of local food and of the countryside. Churches, schools and towns hold harvest suppers and food drives, and many harvest festivals now collect for food banks. Urban dwellers travel home to the village for the festival, as in the big migrations before Chuseok and Pongal. Tourism has made some festivals famous, and organisers work to keep them true to their meaning, with locals still at the centre of the day.

Harvest and thanksgiving around the world

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Traditions to start with

ThanksgivingThe American harvest feast.ChuseokThe Korean autumn harvest festival.PongalThe Tamil harvest festival.Mid-Autumn FestivalThe harvest moon festival.SukkotThe Jewish harvest festival.New Yam FestivalWest African first fruits.Harvest festivalThe German harvest thanksgiving.Harvest festivalThe British church tradition.

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